The main dial is located on top of the Panasonic TZ1 digital camera. This dial contains the main modes for a variety of camera settings. Among them are the SCN1 and SCN2 settings, which contain a large number of pre-set scenes. The SCN1 mode on the Panasonic Lumix DMC TZ1 offers a range of 10 scenes, each corresponding to a common or sometimes not so common situation. You will be undoubtedly be familiar with scenes such as Portrait, Night Scenery and Snow, but how about Food, Starry Sky, or even Baby 1 and 2? The last scene is in fact kind of funny. At the press conference in Portugal last month, Panasonic even mentioned this particular scene and stated: "We already had baby 1 mode, but people were asking what to do with two babies? So we decided to add another baby mode to the new models..." This mode lets you add the birthday to the picture and when the flash is used, the light from it is weaker than usual. The scene modes are handy, but some of them are perhaps a bit over the top.

It is almost impossible to imagine that in the early days digital cameras offered 1.5 inch LCD monitors with a resolution of less than 100,000 pixels. Today it is hard to find such a small display on the back of a digital camera, in fact you find almost only displays of at least 2 inches in size. The Panasonic Lumix DMC TZ1 offers a 2.5 inch high resolution (207,000 pixels) TFT display with a field of view ratio of approximately 100%. In practice handling a digital camera with a bright, sharp LCD monitor is very convenient. It is simply easier to compose your photos and far more convenient to share your captured moment with others. It may have taken some time, but it seems that manufacturers have finally realized that the LCD is the most important communication centre of the camera. If you press the LCD button for more than 1 second you can activate the High Angle mode. Once activated it becomes very easy to use the LCD monitor high above your head. Instead of getting a very dark screen (which is typical for such an angle), the LCD shows a bright screen, as if you were in fact like looking straight at it, very handy!

Exposure compensation

Lumix Playback zoom

PictBridge support

Panasonic TZ1 Exposure compensation

Panasonic TZ1 Playback zoom

Panasonic TZ1 PictBridge support

Positioned on the multi-selector, and available in the record mode, is the exposure compensation function. This function comes in handy when you are unable to achieve the appropriate exposure due to the difference in brightness between the subject and the background. Exposure compensation can be set to values between -2.0 EV (underexposure) and +2.0 EV (overexposure) in increments of 1/3 EV.

In the playback mode you can magnify the image by rotating the zoom lever. When you rotate the zoom lever towards W after enlarging the picture, the magnification becomes lower. When you rotate the zoom lever towards T, the magnification becomes higher. The Panasonic Lumix TZ1 is able to magnify the image 16x. If you want to save the enlarged picture, you can do this by using the trimming function.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC TZ1 incorporates an USB 2.0 Full Speed interface. By connecting the camera with the supplied USB cable to a printer that supports PictBridge, pictures can be printed directly from the memory or the memory card without having to be transferred to a computer. Connect the camera to a computer and the data can be transferred to your hard drive.

DMC-TZ1 Video clips

DMC-TZ1 AE Bracketing

DMC-TZ1 Metering

Panasonic DMC-TZ1 Video clips

Panasonic DMC-TZ1 AE Bracketing

Panasonic DMC-TZ1 Metering

Besides capturing 5 Megapixel still images, the Panasonic Lumix DMC TZ1 offers a movie mode. Activating the Movie mode enables you to select various types of movies;: from 848 x 480 pixels in 16:9 format to 320 x 240 pixels in 3:2 format. During recording you can use the optical zoom; this does mean, however, that the zoom movement becomes slower than in the still image mode. The Movie mode records at 30 frames per second.

Even though the Panasonic Lumix DMC TZ1 is able to expose an image in an excellent way, there are times when you want to shoot a series of pictures at different exposure values for each frame. Three pictures are automatically recorded in the selected exposure compensation range each time the shutter button is pressed. You can select the picture with the desired exposure from the three pictures with different exposures.

Generally, multiple metering is the most suitable exposure for average shooting. The camera measures the exposure by judging the allocation of brightness on the whole screen automatically. Other metering modes are: centre weighted (focus on the subject in the centre of the screen and measure the whole screen evenly) and spot metering, where the Panasonic TZ 1 camera measures the subject in the spot metering target.